Sony Aiming To Coincide PlayStation 4 Launch With Next Xbox

Being third to market with the PlayStation three behind Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii undoubtedly hurt Sony, at least in the early days. With gamers already having stumped up the money for the Xbox 360 in particular, Sony’s expensive option struggled to gain traction for quite some time after its release. A hugely staggered worldwide release did not help, either.

Now it would seem that Sony has finally learned from that mistake, with news that the company intends to avoid a repeat performance this generation.

Speaking at a press event in London, PlayStation Europe’s Jim Ryan suggested that the PlayStation 4 will be made available before the competition has had a chance to build up a lead similar to that of the Xbox 360.

Ryan was speaking to press at an event aimed at promoting the upcoming launch of Sony’s PSP replacement, the PlayStation Vita.

With Nintendo set to bring its Wii-U console to market in 2012, Jim Ryan suggested that his own company may not wait much longer than that to bring the PlayStation 4 to market.

I think we would consider it undesirable to be significantly later than the competition [with the next PlayStation].

Ryan then went on to say that the company has some ‘unfinished business’ with the PlayStation 3, leading some to believe that the PS3 will continue to be supported by Sony after the new console is made available. Sony did a similar thing with the PlayStation 2, and we wouldn’t want to bet against a similar pattern this time around.

Sony will obviously want to get their next console out before Microsoft updates their ageing Xbox 360. With the Xbox 360 going up against the PS2 for so long last time around, Sony found themselves playing catch-up for some time after, and some would argue they never did. Getting the PS4 out before Microsoft’s offering will give Sony the leg-up they may need to redress the balance.

What all this means is that the current expectations for new hardware pan out like this: Nintendo plans on bringing the new Wii-U to market towards the end of 2012, with the knock-on affect of that being a Sony PS4 hitting shelves not too much later, possibly early 2013.

Microsoft, the arguable winners of this generation of consoles is believed to have 2013 penciled in as the launch window for the Xbox 360 replacement, whatever that may end up being called.

Reports have already been circulating that at least one of Sony’s first-party developers has ceased working on PlayStation 3 titles so they can move to working on PS4 software. If that is indeed true, then the timescale outlined above could well be accurate.